This year, the list is back! So it's time to see how, if at all, users have learned their lessons about what makes a strong password.
Here's the full list and how it compares to last year's:
| # | Password | Change from 2011 |
| 1. |
password |
Unchanged |
| 2. |
123456 |
Unchanged |
| 3. |
12345678 |
Unchanged |
| 4. |
abc123 |
Up 1 |
| 5. |
qwerty |
Down 1 |
| 6. |
monkey |
Unchanged |
| 7. |
letmein |
Up 1 |
| 8. |
dragon |
Up 2 |
| 9. |
111111 |
Up 3 |
| 10. |
baseball |
Up 1 |
| 11. |
iloveyou |
Up 2 |
| 12. |
trustno1 |
Down 3 |
| 13. |
1234567 |
Down 6 |
| 14. |
sunshine |
Up 1 |
| 15. |
master |
Down 1 |
| 16. |
123123 |
Up 4 |
| 17. |
welcome |
New |
| 18. |
shadow |
Up 1 |
| 19. |
ashley |
Down 3 |
| 20. |
football |
Up 5 |
| 21. |
jesus |
New |
| 22. |
michael |
Up 2 |
| 23. |
ninja |
New |
| 24. |
mustang |
New |
| 25. |
password1 |
New |
As you can see, people haven’t changed their password habits a whole lot in a year.
If your password is included on that list, or is a close variation of these passwords, it's really important to take action now!
Fixing your password problem can be very simple;
Long is strong: The longer the password, the more difficult it will be for someone to try and crack it using brute force. So, instead of a single word, with a jumble of symbols, numbers and characters, try a string of words. Use a line of your favorite poem, song or just something memorable. Feel free to add your lucky number at the end if you like.
Something like: "withnodirectionhome1085".
A famous Dylan lyric like this will always be easy to remember, and say you were born in October 1985. This means that you've suddenly got a 23 character password, which is much harder to crack than something much harder to remember such as "Phu!R7tRjX".
Variety is the spice of life: The trouble with smaller, complex passwords is that they can be a real hassle to remember, often forcing you to use the same password for multiple accounts which is never a good idea. So another benefit of having long, easy to remember passwords is that you keep many passwords.
Source: Internet Crime Complaint Center's 01/07/2013 Scam Alerts.
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